Flotsam News

Hey Drifters,
We've got a small update for you to test out: The Architect!
We've heard your requests for the ability to relocate constructions and ways to restructure the town. It posed some interesting challenges and flabbergasted us for a while, given the game's setup, but we found a solution. Enter: The Architect! This specialist allows you to go into 'Architect Mode' and completely re-plan your entire town, re-think pipelines, or just move some buildings around.

It's a highly experimental feature, and we're hoping to get some good feedback on it to iron out the kinks. Enjoy the update!

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
This update will most likely be in experimental for some time, in the meantime we'll push some performance updates to it to further smooth out the gameplay.

This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.

This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game:
1. Open Steam Library
2. Right click Flotsam
3. Select Properties
4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top.
5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.

[h2]Early Access 0.7.5e1: The Architect[/h2]

[h3]The Architect[/h3]

• New Construction: Architect Station. The Architect station unlocks the 'Architect Mode'.
  
• Added the 'Architect Mode', in this mode you can move or store buildings and thus re-structure the town.
  
• Updated the tech tree to implement the Architect.
  
• Added The Architect specialist.
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Made some changes and fixes to our sound editor.
  
• Updated shader editor.
  

Hey Drifters!
The Quality of Life: Housing update is here!

Changes to morale back in patch 0.6 unfortunately resulted in the removal of multi-drifter housing. However, we understand the importance to proper neighborhood building, so we set out to reintroduce it while keeping it in line with the new design. You now have the option to build solo and duo houses, as well as a boarding house that provides temporarily shelter to drifters.

Furthermore, we've implemented some other improvements, such as a small map movement update: Previously, clicking behind the boat on the map would cause the town to turn towards that location. However, we've made a change to make the town reverse to that spot instead. This option is in addition to reversing by holding both mouse buttons, and should smooth map movement.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
Next up is the Architect specialist! We've heard your requests for the ability to relocate constructions. It posed some challenges and had us flabbergasted for a while, given the game's setup, but we found a solution. Enter: the Architect, a specialist that allows you to go into 'Architect Mode' and completely re-plan your entire town, re-think pipelines,... or simply move a few buildings around :)

Enjoy the new update!

[h2]Early Access 0.7.4: QoL: Housing[/h2]
Version 0.7.4 is a small Quality of Life patch that updates housing and offers new housing options.

[h3]Housing[/h3]

• Changed housing constructions. Known houses are now: Solo Tent, Solo Shack, Solo Cottage.
  
• Added new housing for two drifters at once: Duo Tent, Duo Shack, Duo Cottage.
  
• Added new house: Boarding House. This house provides a home for 5 drifters but can not be upgraded.
  
• Solo Cottage, Duo Shack and Duo Cottage have decoration slots on them.
  
• Reworked all housing visuals.
  
• You can now assign drifters to different houses.
  

[h3]Town Movement[/h3]

• Clicking behind the boat will now make the boat go in reverse instead of trying to rotate towards that location. This is in addition to holding both mouse buttons to reverse.
  

[h3]Animations[/h3]

• Added animation for the Recycler.
  
• Added animation for the Toolmaker.
  
• Added animation for the Doctor treating a patient.
  
• Added animation for patients in Med Pods.
  
• Added animation for the Apothecary.
  
• Added animation for gathering dead wood.
  
• Added animation for collecting landmark salvageables from the ground.
  
• Fixed mishaps in reroll animations.
  
• Reworked Cooking Reroll and Idle animation.
  
• Reworked Research, Athletics and Construction Reroll animations.
  
• Fixed some animation mishaps.
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Shuffled construction categories a bit: There's now a 'housing' category and a 'storage' category. The 'Town Movement' category has been repurposed as a 'general/town' category.
  
• Updated some constructions to create more readability.
  
• Updated colors on some constructions to theme their purpose.
  
• Added icons showing the width of each park.
  
• Fishing Chair is now properly scaled at 6x2 as originally intended.
  
• Various improvements to the performance.
  
• You can now build upgrade constructions without building the base construction first.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Decoration are now correctly rotated as shown in their preview when placed.
  
• Drifters now stop constructing when it is night.
  
• Fixed issue where upgrading would take as much time as building the construction from scratch.
  
• Fixed issue where some particles didn't show.
  
• Fixed issue where loading a save before a drifter died resulted in errors.
  
• Fixed issue where loading a save where drifters were deconstructing caused them to sometimes get stuck.
  
• Fixed issue where deconstructing a building lead to export inventories of producers to exceed their maximum, causing drifters that deconstruct it to get stuck.
  
• Cancelled items now get moved to a producer's export inventory, resolving issues where items would either get lost or not be in the correct inventory.
  
• Fixed issue where items of cancelled production projects would be stuck in the import inventory after a load because cancelled recipes were not persisted.
  
• Fixed issue where processing a dead drifter would cause an error when assigning drifters to tasks.
  
• Fixed issue where deconstructing a walkway could remove a pathfinding target and not allow the game to save anymore.
  
• Fixed issue where drifter would not stop fishing while de fishing chair was deconstructed.
  
• Fixed issue that caused constructions to stay in place when immediately deconstructing them after placing them.
  
• Fixed issue that caused no paths to be found to decoration slots, causing stutters and making the plants appear instantaneously.
  
• Fixed issue where animations could sometimes take much longer to salvage dead and fallen trees.
  
• Fixed issue where the 1x1 park did not show an available decoration slot.
  

Hey Drifters,
We've got a small update for you to test out, an Quality of Life improvement to Housing!
The changes to morale back in patch 0.6 unfortunately resulted in the removal of multi-drifter housing. However, we understand the importance to proper neighborhood building, so we set out to reintroduce it while keeping it in line with the new design. You now have the option to build solo and duo houses, as well as a boarding house that provides temporarily shelter to drifters.

Furthermore, we're testing out a small map movement improvement: Previously, clicking behind the boat on the map would cause the town to turn towards that location. However, we've made a change to make the town reverse to that spot instead. This option is in addition to reversing by holding both mouse buttons, and should smooth map movement.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
This update shouldn't be in experimental too long! After it, we're doing a test run for the 'Architect'. A specialist that will allow you to re-plan your entire town,.. or just move some buildings around.

This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.

This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game:
1. Open Steam Library
2. Right click Flotsam
3. Select Properties
4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top.
5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.

[h2][/h2]

[h3]Early Access 0.7.4e1: QoL: Housing[/h3]
Version 0.7.4 is a small Quality of Life patch that updates housing and offers new housing options.

[h3]Housing[/h3]

1. Changed housing constructions. Known houses are now: Solo Tent, Solo Shack, Solo Cottage.
   
2. Added new housing for two drifters at once: Duo Tent, Duo Shack, Duo Cottage.
   
3. Added new house: Boarding House. This house provides a home for 5 drifters but can not be upgraded.
   
4. Solo Cottage, Duo Shack and Duo Cottage have decoration slots on them.
   
5. Reworked all housing visuals.
   
6. You can now assign drifters to different houses.
   
7. Added new building category for housing to not clog the general town category.
   

[h3]Town Movement[/h3]

• Clicking behind the boat will now make the boat go in reverse instead of trying to rotate towards that location. This is in addition to holding both mouse buttons to reverse.
  

[h3]Animations[/h3]

• Added animation for the Recycler.
  
• Added animation for the Toolmaker.
  
• Added animation for the Doctor treating a patient.
  
• Added animation for patients in Med Pods.
  
• Added animation for the Apothecary.
  
• Added animation for gathering dead wood.
  
• Added animation for collecting landmark salvageables from the ground.
  
• Fixed mishaps in reroll animations.
  
• Reworked Cooking Reroll and Idle animation.
  
• Reworked Research, Athletics and Construction Reroll animations.
  
• Fixed some animation mishaps.
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Updated some constructions to create more readability.
  
• Updated colors on some constructions to theme their purpose.
  
• Added icons showing the width of each park.
  
• Fishing Chair is now properly scaled at 6x2 as originally intended.
  
• Various improvements to the performance.
  
• Watchtower and Radio have been moved to the 'Town Movement' category.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Decoration are now correctly rotated as shown in their preview when placed.
  
• Drifters now stop constructing when it is night.
  

Hey Drifters!
The Endless Journey update has arrived!

This update has been in the making for quite some time, fine-tuning procedural and hand-crafted maps, testing various aspects like map feel, progression, town movement and more. With that, we're delighted to finally present the final version of the world map and the town movement! You can now travel eastward continuously forever, no limits!

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
The Quality of Life: Housing update, featuring multi-drifter housing and other improvements, was temporarily postponed to prioritize this update. Now that 0.7.3 is live, we're shifting our focus back to the QoL update.

Enjoy the new update!

[h2]Early Access 0.7.3: Endless Journey[/h2]
Version 0.7.3 introduces the 'Endless Journey', allowing continuous eastward movement without limits!

[h3]Endless Journey[/h3]

• Implemented an endless map, where you can continuously move eastwards. This consists of continuous multiple hand-crafted tiles.
  
• Created various map tiles and map starting tiles.
  
• Removed the option to start in the handmade or procedural map, as these are no longer relevant.
  

[h3]Map[/h3]

• Added table and paper map visuals to the map view.
  
• Plastic, Wood and Seaweed Map visuals now are scaled based on the amount of resources in them.
  
• Map landmarks now lose color and gradually turn grey/sepia when salvaged instead of spawning a green flag when empty.
  
• Added scouting markers above marked landmarks.
  
• Generators and Books will now be marked by rescued drifters as well.
  
• Various map visual polish and fixes.
  
• Scouting regions now scout regions on subsequent tiles.
  

[h3]Landmarks[/h3]

• Added Shops landmarks: Electronics Store, Bike Shop, Book Shop. These have a low chance to appear in the Rural Ruins.
  
• Added restaurant landmark, a Rural Ruins food landmark providing a smaller amount of food.
  
• Added many variations to existing landmarks.
  
• Added twigs to some Polluted Wood landmarks that provide Firewood.
  
• Fixed issue where selection circle would not appear around selected landmarks.
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Various fixes and tweaks to landmarks.
  
• Various small tweaks to the map.
  
• Updated landmark names and descriptions.
  

[h3]Balancing[/h3]

• Batteries storage 1.500 Eels -> 1.000 Eels.
  
• Townheart Beauty 25 -> 50.
  
• Removed negative liquids stat for thirsty drifters. Added negative liquids stats to hungry drifters. Reduced severity of hunger.
  
• Reduced Morale impact on levelling speed. Unhappy 0% -> 40%, Neutral 65% -> 75%.
  
• having -10 Morale will now cause 0% levelling speed for those drifters.
  

[h3]Performance[/h3]

• Increased performance for particles.
  
• Removed unnecessary particles.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed issue with drifters getting stuck after upgrading walkway pontons with electricity poles on them.
  
• Fixed issue with map landmarks not properly turning gray/sepia.
  
• Fixed crash caused by cleaning up landmarks when going to main menu.
  
• Fixed a mushroom landmark not being reachable by boat.
  
• Fixed issue where a drifter could get stuck unloading a construction before upgrading.
  
• Fixed issue where loading a save would crash when the town's polygon collider was updated.
  
• Fixed bug where doctor and patient would get stuck when patient would be cured because the disease time expired while the patient was still in the MedPod.
  
• Fixed bug where turning the MedPod off would not cancel all projects related to the MedPod (would not eject the patient).
  
• Fixed bug where loading a procedural save would result in the map borders not being setup correctly.
  
• Fixed issue with loading a save that has a death drifter still in the community. This could result in an instant Game Over on loading the game.
  
• Fixed issue where returning to an unsaved drifter on a rescue landmark would cause an error.
  
• Fixed issues with newly added simplified and traditional Chinese characters.
  
• Fixed issue where NavMeshNavigator wasn't repositioned correctly after loading a save with a drifter on a landmark.
  
• Fixed Navigator errors when moving drifter navigator after moving the town.
  
• Fixed bug where game could not be saved when Landmarks that had been saved gained additional actions.
  
• Restored morale need cap to 10.
  
• Fixed frozen flotsam rotation.
  
• Fixed map road and region lines intersecting, causing z-fighting.
  
• Fixed park tiling issue.
  

Hey Drifters,
We've got a new update for you to test out; The Endless Journey!
With the work done testing and tweaking the handcrafted maps over the last few patches, we've combined the procedural and handcrafted maps into one continuous experience. You can now move endlessly eastward moving along various handcrafted tiles.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
With the addition of the endless map, we're moving forward with the features that build upon it. In the meantime, a Quality of Life: Housing update will add multi-drifter housing, as well as other small patches coming in 0.7.x.

This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.

This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game:
1. Open Steam Library
2. Right click Flotsam
3. Select Properties
4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top.
5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]

[h3]Early Access 0.7.3e1: Endless Journey[/h3]

[h3]Endless Journey[/h3]

• Implemented an endless map, where you can continuously move eastwards. This consists of multiple hand-crafted tiles put behind each other.
  
• Created various map tiles and map starting tiles.
  
• Removed the option to start in the handmade or procedural map, as these are no longer relevant.
  

[h3]Landmarks[/h3]

• Added Shops landmarks: Electronics Store, Bike Shop, Book Shop. These have a low chance to appear in the Rural Ruins.
  
• Added restaurant landmark, a Rural Ruins food landmark providing a smaller amount of food.
  

[h3]Misc and Balancing[/h3]

• Various fixes and tweaks to landmarks.
  
• Various variations for landmarks added.
  
• Various small tweaks to the map.
  
• Batteries storage 1.500 Eels -> 1.000 Eels.